underdogishere

Recently, I had an e-mail exchange with someone whose name is the same as an acronym. That got me to wondering what my name would stand for, if it was an acronym. The first thing that came to into my head, which I included in that e-mail exchange, was:

How fun that you have an acronym for a name! I wonder if G.R.E.G. stands for anything. Green Reptile Empowerment Group? Green reptiles of the world, unite! Your time has come! :)

As so often happens in life, this train of thought collided with another that I've been having lately:

Florida is blanketed by a patchwork of governmental entities called "water management districts." I don't know if they have these were you live, but here in Florida we have to face the fact that 200 years ago, this was mostly swamp, and it would revert to swamp pretty quickly -- and then what would happen to our property values? -- if someone didn't keep clearing debris from the drainage canals and such. That "someone" are the water management districts.

My local water management district is a sponsor for my public radio station, and their spots always end by announcing their web site, which is, "double-you double-you double-you dot {blah} {blah} {blah} double-you em dee dot gov".

Note the "Double-you em dee" before the "dot gov". Water Management District.... Every time I hear it, it strikes me as a little incongruous and even unsettling that the seemingly benign governmental agency that's supposed to dredge the local canals has the same acronym as "Weapons of Mass Destruction." Is there something they're not telling us? Is there a nuclear weapons program being conducted out of the district's equipment barn? Are they researching the conversion of canal muck into sarin gas? Sometimes a threat can come from the direction where you least expect it.

Getting back to G.R.E.G., how about the Geek Reactionary Engineering Guild? It would be made up of people who, for example, get Doom to run on an IBM AT PC and are insanely pleased with themselves when they do. There would be lots of secret handshakes and code words.

Is your name an acronym? If not, can you make one up? Leave it in the comments, or post on your own blog and leave me a link.

On a more somber note, B.J. would have been seventeen years old today. I miss her.

Labels: Dogs, Inner Geek, Musing